"They follow our lead and they don't make us live inside a box either creatively or financially, and that is nearly unheard of among networks and movie studios", Levy told Reuters on Thursday.

"The Handmaid's Tale, " the dystopian sci-fi series that claimed top drama honors last year, drew 20 bids, including one for last year's best actress victor, Elisabeth Moss, and supporting bids for Alexis Bledel, Ann Dowd, Yvonne Strahovski and Joseph Fiennes.

In character: Yvonne plays the villainous character Serena Joy in The Handmaid's Tale.

Strahovski, who is pregnant and had to hide her baby bump during the filming of season 2, told Vulture of her nomination: "I can't stop smiling, my face hurts ..." Saturday Night Live and Westworld both grabbed 21 nominations each, while The Handmaid's Tale secured 20 nominations.

Netflix also showed its dominance over the traditional free-to-air and cable TV networks.

While the show didn't retain its former awards nomination glory this year, streaming giant Netflix, which distributes "Orange Is the New Black", earned the most nominations of any channel or platform with 112, narrowly beating HBO's 108.

John Legend scores a nomination of his own for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his role as Jesus in NBC's "Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert". She wasn't nominated for an Emmy in 2017, either.